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Why our CIO has his head in the cloud

Join our CIO, Chris Cochrane, as he explores the impact of cloud technology, and what you can do, to take advantage of it moving forward.

Cloud is completely exploding. It’s one of the most powerful technology disruption trends, and is changing the way we live and do business. And it goes without saying — it’s a huge opportunity for transformation.

Nobody wants to be Blockbusters

Change is happening at pace. Cloud now features on the agenda of every multinational corporation. In fact, many customers I speak to are adopting a cloud-first policy. Customers that had first faced fierce internal resistance have completely turned their boards around. And why is that happening? Why does that matter? To put it simply, nobody wants to be Blockbusters and everybody wants to be Netflix.

Navigating the boardroom

Day in and day out I get to work with the CIOs of the biggest multinational corporations in the world. They all have different problems and aspirations, but the one thing they have in common is that they are truly transformational people. But being brilliant, and having the vision to tackle disruptive technology trends like cloud, doesn’t mean they can always put plans into action.

The good news is that our 2017 global survey of over 400 CEOs[3] reveals that they are positive about the opportunities of digital transformation — to the extent that one in four are even taking the lead in bringing digital transformation to their companies.

Why build, own and maintain IT if you can rent it?

What mega corporations like Uber or Facebook have in common is that they don’t own the traditional assets. They got where they are through leveraging disruptive technology, the sharing economy and social media. So the biggest challenge is not what to do, but how to do it.

We believe the way ahead lies in embracing the same infrastructure and open innovation model as these digital entrepreneurs. Using cloud-based services and future networking to build, flex and scale a truly digital business. Why build, own and maintain IT when you can rent it?

Ubiquitous connectivity, cloud services, mobility and standards have combined to create an ecosystem of technologies that anyone can use, anyone can adapt and anyone can sell as a service.

Read our digital business paper, part of our digital transformation thought-leadership series, to help you find the right approach to cloud adoption, and maximise all the benefits on offer. By working out where your organisation is on its cloud journey, and how you can best use cloud services, it’s easy to rapidly progress to the next stage of your digital transformation pathway.